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While most companies are accepting that social media marketing is a great way to stay in touch with the thoughts and feelings of their customers, many still don’t exactly understand why it works. Gathering a following on social media is now a powerful key factor in having your company’s voice heard, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The goal of social media marketing isn’t just about getting more likes on facebook, followers or retweets on twitter but it's also about good marketing practices that benefit businesses in major ways to create online sales and achieve the same impact of traditional advertising. Below we've listed 5 major benefits to social media marketing.

1. Brand Awareness:

Social media is one of the best ways to introduce people to a new brand or product. It can also help reintroduce an existing brand to a new audience as well as strengthen your relationship with your current costumers. Utilizing social media, which over two thirds of the United States’ population uses, is one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to get your company’s name into people’s mind which can then lead to traffic to your website or place of business, which is the ultimate goal of many social media marketing strategies.

2. Brand Legitimacy:

In the same way employers run background checks for new hires, consumers also a do a bit of research to verify if a company does exist and has quality services or products. Now-a-days it’s easier than ever for anyone to create a website for just about anything, a product, an event, an idea, or anything you can imagine. Smart consumers want to make sure that the place they plan to interact with is who or what they say they are. Social media marketing suggests that new customers may be driven away if a business’ social media accounts appear to be inactive because they assume that the company may no longer be in business. Social Media marketing can benefit your brand legitimacy by showing that you are a company that keeps up to date in your industry and that you know what is going on in your industry.

3. Increase Sales:

Once you've established yourself as a legitimate brand, this audience that you have built creates trust between your business and potential consumers. This connection can generate sales by allowing them easy access to your new and existing products with a simple post. One of the best parts of social media marketing is the ability to create content tailored specifically to your audience. Engaged followers on social media can help you gain more exposure by liking or sharing your posts which could be indirectly advertising your product or services to their network of friends and followers. This can help increase your sales through direct website conversions or through spreading awareness of promotions that you run as special offers to social media followers. Most social media platforms now have designed special tools for businesses to help promote themselves through various ad placement integrations that do not interrupt the users' experience on that specific social network. These non-disruptive ads, such as in-stream facebook ads, are very important as followers who are bombarded with online ads may be put off by the company running them and may result in a negative reaction towards the brand. In the end it is possible to lose trust you worked so hard to earn if you practice social media marketing in ways that users don't appreciate.

4. Improved Customer Service:

Social media is all about connections; connecting people with people who have similar interests or experiences. So it makes sense that companies are now using social media to connect with their consumers. This can allow your business to benefit from direct customer feedback or from past clients with the ability to immediately respond to any requests made, thereby improving the customer service experience.

5. Content Distribution:

Social media plays an integral part in any marketing strategy as it becomes one of the main sources of content distribution. In the past, the challenge was the need to ensure that your content reached your customers in the shortest time possible. With social media there are so many tools at your disposal to get real-time news about your company (or industry) in the hands of your customers with ease. A simple click is all it takes to get your brand's new products or services shared with hundreds of thousands of people.

**BONUS FACT** Social Media also includes Yelp and Google+, so make sure to update your company's information and images on networks like those too.

Take a moment to address your company’s social media marketing. What are the strengths in your social media strategy and where can improvements be made? If you need assistance creating or optimizing your social media profiles to nurture customer relationships, then All in Web Pro is here to help.